


Slippage

by DaiseeChain



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-25
Updated: 2003-04-25
Packaged: 2017-11-04 13:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaiseeChain/pseuds/DaiseeChain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anya's in the kitchen, simmering under.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slippage

He looked at her as if he didn't understand.

"The peanut butter", she stated, "the jar you were supposed to buy on your way back home."

"Aan, honey. I'm tired", he said emphasizing the tired part. "I've  
worked all day. Constructing things. You know, building type  
construction. Sometimes little things like that slip my mind."

"Sure they do! The things that I want slip your mind. Not the things  
that you want. Not the things that Willow wants. Not the things that  
Buffy wants." Her voice was shrill now. It had taken her 15 minutes to  
compose herself enough to be able to have a calm reasonable discussion.  
And suddenly she was a shrew. Like the women in those Shakespeare  
plays. How did that happen anyway?

Xander was looking at her warily, arms up and palms out as if to say  
"Hey, don't take it out on me lady", but what came out of his mouth was  
"Look, if you want me to go back out and get the peanut butter, I'll  
get the peanut butter. Crunchy or smooth?"

He didn't understand. How could she make him understand? He was so  
infuriating. She just wanted to hurl something at him, like a jar of  
peanut butter, only she didn't have one handy. She huffed instead.

"Forget it. I don't want it anymore."

"Then what's with all the pressure?", he asked confusedly.

"Because you didn't get it, which means you just don't get it!" She was  
crying now. She could feel the salt water edging out of her eyes and  
falling gently down her face. A drop of it stopped at the top of her  
lip, clung for a moment as if resentful of letting go, then finally  
gave in and dropped into the chasm onto her tongue, letting her taste  
her own bitterness.

She saw the moment Xander gave in. The gauze curtain drawing over his  
eyes, his shoulders drooping in a way that told her quite clearly, he  
was leaving her to it, whatever it might be.

"If you make up your mind what you want, let me know. I'll be in the bedroom getting changed."

She watched him retreat to the safety of another room. Any other room.

Men, she thought as if the word were a curse. He can help fight demons,  
armegeddons, and the Watchers' Council, but try having a discussion  
about relationships and he runs screaming as fast as he can go in the  
opposite direction.

She yanked her apron off the hook and started angrily rummaging in  
drawers and cupboards. A pot hit the stove with an almighty thump. She  
clanged a metal serving spoon into the pot, then picked up a knife, but  
decided, on second thoughts, to put it gently back in the knife rack.

In hindsight she supposed she was being a bit hard on him. He probably  
didn't realize they'd been having a relationship discussion. She'd  
been meaning to bring it round to that. Open up the dialogue with some  
sandwiches; give him a little food so his blood sugar wouldn't be  
running so low that he'd be churlish and uncooperative. Which is where  
the plan had begun to unravel. There had been nothing in the house to  
put into a sandwich, so she'd phoned him and asked him to get the  
peanut butter on his way back. He'd told her he would. He'd promised  
her he would. And then he'd come home empty handed.

It was a simple thing really. Just a tiny request. Not like the orders  
she'd once imperiously shot off without a second thought. She'd waited  
all day for him. Oh sure, she worked her ass off in the Magic box, but  
that was really only filling in time till she got to see him. The money  
she earned there, while still useful, no longer held the allure it once  
had. It was after all, only a means to an end. And she could never  
prove to anyone outside the Scooby gang that she had earnt it. She was  
an ex-demon, had been born centuries before anyone first thought to  
have a census. Had never technically arrived in this country. So she  
had no social security number. So she could never have a bank account.  
Never collect welfare if she needed it. Never get a pension. Never. She  
was a nobody here. More invisible than an illegal alien. Could you be  
more invisible, she wondered? Or was that an impossibility. If you were  
invisible, you just were. Surely you couldn't be more invisible or less  
invisible?

She shrugged and threw open the fridge door, peering into it, as if  
that might resolve the question of her opacity. But the eggs remained  
stoically silent.

She pulled tomatoes out and dropped them onto the chopping board over  
by the stovetop. Not bothering to wash them, she pulled out the knife  
again, and started hacking away at the blood red bodies. It reminded  
her a little of the old days. She thought of them often, particularly  
during arguements. She knew she oughtn't think of them as "The Good Old  
Days", but she couldn't help it. She watched as the tomatoes  
transformed themselves in her mind to plump, pink, human body parts,  
oozing blood and guts and pips. Ok. Not pips. Just blood and guts. Red  
juice ran over her fingers, becoming blood, becoming juice again.

She paused mid slice. The flashbacks were fewer these days, but they  
could still catch her unexpectedly. And the paranoia never really left.  
She tried to channel it into aggressive marketing strategies, boring  
Xander and company to tears. Not even Xander seemed to understand its  
necessity. That the alternative could be literally agonizing for all of  
them.

Slice and dice, slice and dice. She was really just a giant slice and  
dice machine like the one advertised on the shopping channel for 13.95  
(accessories included, plus free set of steak knives). Hundreds of  
years slicing and dicing had prepared her for... slicing and dicing.  
Without the messy stains and the tormented crying this time.

How had she gotten here anyway? She'd ordered death and wholesale  
destruction on a scale her new friends hadn't quite grasped even now.  
Tortured and tormented people, if she was honest, just for the hell of  
it. She certainly hadn't had any other hobbies to keep her occupied.  
And now she chopped vegetables for a man who couldn't remember to bring  
home peanut butter. There was something wrong with the order of things  
here. Surely you were supposed to become more powerful, not less, as  
you got older.

The how of ending up human, was easy. One necklace, slightly broken,  
good for half hearted attempts at cursing rabbits, going cheap. But the  
how of ending up a housefrau? A thousand years of vengeance, to end up  
right back where she started. An ordinary human woman, in love with an  
ordinary human man, slowly losing herself to him.

Because that was what this, and the tomatoes, all really boiled down  
to. Independence. Taken from her forcefully when her necklace had been  
destroyed. Slowly and deliberately destroyed in that joke of a school  
system. Whittled away from her piece by piece in her life with Xander.  
She loved Xander. She truly did. But every day that he made huge  
strides in his independence, she had to fight just that little bit  
harder to keep from losing what little she had left. She was working  
and bleeding her soul away for him, and for the cause. And he was  
working and bleeding his soul away for them. Not for her.

Carrots, onions, olive oil followed the tomatoes into the pot. Let  
simmer for 15 minutes. Well, she supposed she had been by now. Better  
go make up. Which they would. He would kiss her, and she would feel  
that jolt run down her spine again, just like always, and she would  
still be mad at him, but she would give him what he wanted. Time,  
space, some of her money, because it was whatever he wanted, even when  
he didn't give the same back in return, not even peanut butter, but she  
would never, ever, walk away. Because really, what did she have left to  
walk toward?


End file.
